


Becoming Who You Are

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azkadellia was not always willing to admit the truth to the rest of the royal family, but she was going along with the changes they were making after the Double Eclipse. Zero is the last reminder of who she used to be, and he was being sent to the gallows for crimes against the Crown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Who You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "spinal injury" box on my [hc_bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/hc_bingo/) card.

Azkadellia had gone to visit Zero in the dungeons the day before his execution by hanging was scheduled. She had avoided him until then, hadn't gone to the trials at all. She hadn't wanted to see those features drawn into a caricature of a smile, hadn't wanted to see him grin at her or call her Sorceress. She couldn't tolerate that, even if she still thought she saw the Sorceress' features in the mirror. DG had managed to convince everyone that she was possessed by the Sorceress and that she wasn't evil by nature. She knew she would have to earn the trust of the populace, and somehow the royal family would have to decide who the Crown Princess would be: the one tainted by the dark or the Slipper who didn't know any of the OZ's traditions.

But the day before his execution, Azkadellia couldn't put it off any longer. There wasn't going to be any other chance to see him. For better or for worse, he had been her general and he had followed her orders. She wasn't asked to bear any of the guilt, but that didn't mean she didn't have any. She didn't always fight the Sorceress' whims. Sometimes they collaborated, having long and drawn out discussions about the history and theory of magic. She had learned so much when she wasn't terrified of the Sorceress, and she _knew,_ even if no one else in the royal family wanted to believe it, that she was capable of the same atrocities herself.

Zero knew that. She could see it in his eyes when she approached. She could see that he worshiped _her,_ not just the power she had wielded as the Sorceress. There was open lust in his eyes when he took in her figure, the pale blue dress holding her together. Zero had done whatever she asked of him and more, and he was the one that would be killed in her stead.

"Princess," he said, lips twisting into something resembling a smile. She remembered that the Sorceress had found it amusing. Azkadellia could only stare, chilled. She wanted to touch those lips, wanted to see if they were still as soft as she remembered when he was layering kisses down her spine as he undid her corsets and fucked her hard and fast. Azkadellia could feel her chest tighten in memory, could feel the longing deep within her. He had known how to make her body sing, had known just where to touch her to make her unravel.

"They're sending you to the gallows tomorrow morning," Azkadellia said. Her voice was even, betraying none of her conflict and guilt. His death was her fault. So were all the others at her hands, even if she carried a different name and title then. She had still been complicit. DG could never assuage that guilt.

"So they tell me," Zero replied, leaning back on the spare sleeping bench of his cell. He somehow looked comfortable, as if it wasn't a barren and barred hellhole that he had been thrown into. He was dressed in loose prison garb, but Azkadellia could remember the black leather and menace in his eyes. "Why are you here, Princess? Did they allow you here for one last visit?" He leaned forward when she was silent, merely staring at him with large eyes. "Did you want one last kiss?" His lip curled as the blush rose in her cheeks, the faintest hint of what he could coax out of her if he really tried hard enough.

"Zero, they're going to kill you. For my crime."

He laughed then, long and loud. She remembered that laugh when one of the lower ranking Longcoats had made a mistake and Zero had to discipline him in front of the rest of the regimen. _This is how you remember not to do it again,_ he had laughed. _This is how you'll never forget the rules._

"Oh, Princess. Look at you. Look at how they've bent and broken you. Look at how they make you beg and borrow for attention." There was something like pity in his tone, something like understanding. It burned her.

She held her ground when he stood, when he came close to the bars and reached through them for her. He slid his hand along the front of her dress, fingers sliding across the silk and lace. Azkadellia gripped the bars tightly, knuckles going white. She could only stare at him as her breath caught, as her lips parted the way they used to. "I don't know if I can be there tomorrow," she whispered, her breath fracturing around the words.

"You'll be there," he said, lips twisting into that confident sneer she remembered. Jail had done nothing to dim the arrogance of him. "You'll be there to see me to my grave, to remember what we had because no one else will. They'll retell our story, change the ending. You'll be the poor maligned princess, conned and connived into doing the world harm. I'll be the evil maniac, twisting things to my own end." Zero slipped his other hand through the bars to caress her face, to run his fingers through her hair. He pulled at her hairpins, and she didn't care. "We'll know the truth, love, and you'll remember me for what I was."

"What's that?" she choked, leaning her face closer to his next to the bars.

"Your loyal and loving servant," Zero whispered, bringing his face closer. He pressed his lips against hers lightly. "Your lover, Princess, when no else understood what you needed."

Something like a sob escaped her lips, and Zero pulled her tight against the bars to kiss her, to thrust his tongue deeply into her mouth. It was hard and fast, no essence of tenderness at all. It was how they used to kiss, frantic passion and not enough time. Never enough time.

And then he released her, and Azkadellia staggered backward. "I'll be there," she whispered. _I love you._

He smiled, harsh planes of his face softening. "Thank you, Azkadellia." _I love you, too._

The smile left his face when she fled the dungeon. He was going to be killed in the morning, and he wasn't exactly looking forward to dying.

***

Azkadellia sat with her hands in a white-knuckled grip as she watched Zero be led to the gallows and the rope placed around his neck. He turned to find her in the royal box at the last moment, his eyes large and searching. There was a subtle shift to his lips, and then the trapdoor was pulled.

Only, he kept right on breathing.

Azkadellia thought her heart stopped, her breath froze in her chest. She could hear her mother's soft noise of distaste and DG's cry of alarm. "This is cruel!" DG was saying, watching Zero turn red and purple. The knot must have tied wrong, or it had to be something in the turn of his head. Instead of breaking his spinal cord clean through, his neck was broken but he kept right on breathing.

"I can't watch this," Azkadellia moaned, closing her eyes. The rope had to break. It had to break, right? He couldn't just suffocate to death slowly in front of everyone.

There was a thud, and she opened her eyes a fraction. Zero was collapsed on the floor, and DG was on her feet insisting to the Queen that this had to be punishment enough. This was cruel and unusual punishment, and it was time for the misery to end. She was clearly using the broken rope as a sign that Zero's punishment would be to live as an invalid, rather than die.

Azkadellia couldn't move when her mother agreed, when he would be kept in some dismal ward for political prisoners. The Queen had an expression on her face that Azkadellia used to see in the mirror. That inner cruel streak, that need for revenge was coming out. The Queen wanted to blame Zero for her behavior. He would live out the rest of his days barely able to move, knowing that he was rotting inside of his own body. DG sat next to her afterward, when Azkadellia couldn't do much more than stare at the ground in front of her and try to remember how to breathe.

"C'mon, Az," she said softly, taking one of Azkadellia's chilled hands. "You can't sit out here all night."

Azkadellia turned to DG. "This is my fault. All of this is my fault."

DG shook her head. "This was my fault. None of this would have happened if I didn't run away."

She was such an innocent in the ways of the OZ, the Other Sider that was trying to make things home. She was trying to make things right. She was trying so hard, and Azkadellia could see her as such a wonderful Crown Princess. Azkadellia felt small and useless and awful in comparison.

In the middle of the night, Azkadellia went down to the dungeons. Zero wasn't ready to be moved just yet; the fracture in his neck was too unstable, and no guard wanted to be the one to tell the Queen or Princess DG that they were the ones to kill the prisoner that was given a reprieve. There was no need to place him in a barred cell now; he barely had any sensation below his collarbones and he couldn't move any of his limbs. Her weeping woke him, even though she was trying to be quiet.

Zero brightened. "You're here after all." He gave her a rueful smile. "I'd touch you if I could."

It made her cry harder. "This is my fault."

He laughed, that same arrogant laughter that he'd had in the cell the day before. "How is this your fault? I'm still alive when I should be dead. You say this like it's a bad thing." He shot her a smirk as she lifted her eyes to his face. "I get to look at you again. Even though they've broken you, you're still beautiful. My lost Sorceress," he said, his words like a caress across her skin.

"How can you stand this?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand her. "Because I must," he said in a low tone. "Maybe in time I'll curse my fate. Maybe I'll even hate you." His lips curled slightly. "I don't think I could do that for long, though."

Azkadellia reached out to touch him hesitantly, her hand sliding across his jaw. He could still feel that, and he leaned into her touch. "I don't think I can fix it. I don't know what to do, and I might just make it worse."

"I don't want you to fix it," he said, eyes wild and fierce. "I _want_ them uncomfortable. I _want_ them uneasy. I _want_ them to remember the truth of what they've done, that they're no different from us. They're every nasty thing they say about us, only they get to pretend that they're in the right."

She leaned down and kissed his lips tenderly. "Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice almost timid. "They want you in pain."

"It's like everything is numb," he told her, and she could see the clarity in his eyes. "I want to touch you," he said, frustration finally coloring his voice. "I want to feel you, I want to hear you call my name. You _need_ me, Azkadellia," he said, his voice low and rough in places. She shivered, remembering the other times he'd used that same tone of voice with her. "You've always needed me as much as I needed you."

Azkadellia ran her fingers through his hair, letting the loose tendrils of her own dark hair brush against his face. "I want to do something. I want to help somehow, but I don't even know where to begin."

"You can't help me," Zero said, wishing he could push her down and shake her until her teeth rattled. This weak, sniveling, hurt thing wasn't his Princess, wasn't his Sorceress. He had to use his voice instead, had to use his words to make her see. "Azkadellia. You are being turned into their puppet. You're their creature now." He softened his tone a fraction. "My lost Sorceress, there's nothing you can do."

She seized his face in her hands and moved to straddle his body, which was laid out with supports to keep his fragile spine aligned. "I have to do something," Azkadellia said, her entire body crackling with magic. It was just beneath her skin, needing to do _something_ to ease the hollow thing within her that was made of grief. "I can't leave you like this."

"I should have fucked you yesterday," Zero said, surety in his tone. "It would be a better memory for you. Now you think I'm broken and useless."

"Aren't you?" she shot back, incredulous. "You can't move!"

_"I'm not dead,"_ he hissed at her. "Stop treating me like I am."

Azkadellia pulled back abruptly, eyes wide with shock. "What?"

"I can't move, I can't touch you. How is that any different from before, locked in that cell? I couldn't see you. I couldn't touch you. I couldn't tell you that they're lying to you. They're _lying,_ Azkadellia. They're telling you that you're worthless and that you deserve to be punished. You're believing it. I can see it in you. They _broke_ you and you're letting them."

"It wasn't me that destroyed the OZ," she began slowly, "But I didn't stop it, either."

"You didn't destroy the OZ," Zero insisted. "You were bringing us together. You were creating a new world, a new place of strength. It would have been glorious. I know it would have. They ruined everything."

She covered her mouth with steepled hands, not sure what else to say. He'd always been power mad, always just on the edge of dangerously uncomfortable. She'd loved him anyway, and the Sorceress had been amused by it. _Look at how I've twisted you both,_ she would tell Azkadellia, cackling with laughter. _Look at what I've made of you._

"I'm the one that ruined everything. I didn't fight the Sorceress. She wanted to create eternal darkness, and I would have let her."

"It would have been a place of magic and power. You know that. Not everything dark is evil."

"No, but you are," Azkadellia replied, voice soft.

"Of course I am," he replied easily. "Don't doubt that. It's why we worked so well together. I only wish I could have done _more."_

"I need to go," Azkadellia murmured, moving to shift off of his body.

He wished he could have grasped her arm to make her stay. He wished he could turn her face to look into her eyes, to see if that was really shame there, or a longing for the life that could never be. "Azkadellia."

She looked up, frozen in place. "Zero?"

"At least kiss me goodbye if you're never coming back," he said, voice even and toneless. "At least give me the illusion that you care."

She grasped his face and kissed him hard, the way she used to, her tongue sliding into his mouth. "I care too much," she said, her voice fracturing. "I promised myself I would do _anything_ they asked of me, if only they'd let you live." She blinked back tears. "You're alive, so I have to be what they want me to be."

"You're so much more than that," he murmured, trying to caress her with his eyes. Fuck, he wanted to run his fingers through her hair, he wanted to touch her face and have her shudder beneath him.

"Not anymore," she said in soft voice. She rested her head on his chest, his steady heartbeat cold comfort. He would live, but she would become the dutiful and guilty Princess pulled back from the darkness.

Zero wanted to hold her, wanted to feel her in his arms the way he used to. The memory of that was fading, and he grit his teeth in frustration. His body didn't feel right, didn't respond at all. This was his life now. This was all he would have, and Azkadellia would spend every moment self-flagellating herself for her family's amusement. This wasn't fair to either of them.

"You can be still," he said, his voice a soft whisper. It was almost seductive, the way it used to be when he spoke with her, when he ran his hands along her sides and pushed her down. "They only need to learn to trust you, and you can show them the way to power. You can show your sister the way it should be done. They don't know how to rule these lands anymore, but you do. You can still be powerful, even if no one but me ever calls you Sorceress again."

Azkadellia let out a shuddering sigh, his prisoner's garb fisted in her hands. "Sometimes I hate them," she admitted, squeezing her eyes shut. "I dream that DG never came, that the Sorceress is still with me, that I still have you. And then I wake up, and it's not true, and I _hate_ them."

"There's my Azkadellia," Zero said, his voice a wistful sigh. "There you are."

She trembled above him, a slight shiver he could barely feel above his collarbones by the way her hair shifted back and forth. "What good does that do for you now? They've broken you."

He laughed, that same bitter, hateful laugh he used to have. "Oh, no. I'm as I ever was. They broke my body, maybe, but _I_ am the same."

She lifted her head and looked at him. "How? How is it that they haven't weighted you down?"

"I trusted in you. That underneath it all, _you_ are still the same. _I_ am still the same. They will not break me. I won't let them."

"I don't have that strength," Azkadellia murmured.

Zero shook his head. "You have more than you think you do." He smiled, that razor sharp one with the lack of pity in his eyes. "You kept the Sorceress in check. I know you did. Things would have been so much worse if you didn't pull her hands back. Don't tell me you haven't the strength to go on. You have it, and you don't have to let them break you."

"I don't know where to begin," Azkadellia admitted. "I don't know how to do anything."

"Visit me," Zero demanded. "Defy them all and visit me. Talk with me. Don't hide in your tower waiting to be rescued."

She kissed him, fierce and tender and full of the love she was too frightened to express. "I'll try."

It was all he could ask for, he supposed.

***

There was something hard in Azkadellia's eyes when DG saw her next. For a moment, she thought the Sorceress was back, that the Witch hadn't been pulled out of her sister after all. "Az?"

Then it shifted, and Azkadellia looked remorseful and sad and lost all over again. "I was daydreaming. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in."

"It's okay if you want to be alone," DG said softly, and Azkadellia felt almost sorry for lying to her younger sister. "I just... It's not easy to know someone that's hurt, and I wanted to be here for you."

"You don't like Zero," Azkadellia replied, startled by her sister's genuine expression.

"No, but you do." DG looked at her sister evenly. "You love him, don't you? Like I love Wyatt." Azkadellia didn't answer, and DG merely shrugged in a decidedly unprincesslike manner. "Look, it's okay if you don't feel like telling me. I'm... I haven't been around much, and I haven't been your sister for very long, have I?" Her eyes slid away from Azkadellia's with something like shame in them, and Azkadellia felt hollow and empty. "I just want to make up for what I did. I'm doing my best to be a good princess."

Just what Zero said Azkadellia was trying to do. Just what the Queen wanted both of them to be.

"I'm not..." Azkadellia looked at DG intently. "I don't have any secrets from you. It's... It's my fault this happened to him, that's all. I need to make it up to him somehow."

DG looked up then, seeing that flash of hardness in her eyes again. "It isn't your fault," DG told her quietly. She had seen the projection of Zero's behavior, and that had been long before Zero was a top general. "He enjoyed making others stuffer. He liked causing pain. If it wasn't for being the Sorceress' General, it would have been for any number of a dozen other crimes. They just hadn't been read at the hanging. We would have been there for hours otherwise."

Azkadellia's expression shuttered, and DG almost regretted her thoughtlessly spilled words. "I should go."

"I can go with you. If you need more support, I mean," DG added quickly.

"I did this to him, I'll deal with it."

DG rolled her eyes at Azkadellia. "You didn't do this, okay? He's an evil bastard, and he _knew_ what he was doing. He confessed, grinning all the while, all right? I was there when he confessed. He enjoyed that kind of work. And _you_ didn't pull the lever to hang him. _You_ didn't pass judgment on him. You did nothing to him but love him."

"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Azkadellia asked sharply.

"You can't help who you love," DG replied quietly, and Azkadellia was almost sorry for her tone. It wasn't as if the Queen would want DG to marry Wyatt Cain. He was common, even if he was a lawman, and he was so much older than DG. But DG loved him, and it was plain to see for everyone at court. The Queen hadn't pressed it yet, but Azkadellia knew it would come soon enough. Azkadellia wasn't trusted enough to be the Crown Princess, and none of the remaining nobility would have her anyway. They remembered the Sorceress' murders of the loyalists all too clearly.

"He could have gotten away if he wasn't associated with me."

"He loves you back, doesn't he?" DG asked, head tilted to the side. Azkadellia nodded stiffly. "Then he wouldn't have run. He would have stayed until the end. He would gladly have given his life to protect you. Of that I have no doubts at all."

Azkadellia couldn't disagree with that assessment. She nodded slowly at her sister. "I still have to do this by myself."

She regretted it later, making the trek to Zero's latest prison. There were nurses at all times looking after him, taking care of his physical needs with exquisite care. Zero made nasty comments, cursed with such vile language that the nurses all looked enraged, and sometimes made moves to bite them when they got too close to him. He was making sure they understood who they were dealing with. He was paralyzed, but he wasn't dead and he wasn't tame. He was still dangerous, still an enemy of the state.

After the conversation with DG, Azkadellia could see it in him much more clearly. He wouldn't have run if she had told him to. Just as he didn't accept her taking the blame now, he wouldn't have accepted it then. It twisted inside of her, a shard working its way into her heart. If DG had come with her, Azkadellia could have held onto her shroud of guilt, proclaiming innocence and blame at once. They were both complicit in his actions, and therefore both to blame for his paralysis from the botched execution. He was being hidden away, and she knew that her parents were hoping that people would forget that Zero had ever existed. It would make their reforms pass more easily, and the populace would soon after forget that the darkness had touched the Crown. The other Longcoats had quietly disappeared, never to be seen again. Azkadellia suspected that they were dead. It was what she would have done as Sorceress.

Zero lit up when he saw her standing there. "There you are, my light in the darkness. You've come back."

"I promised you I would."

He beckoned her closer with his eyes, and she felt almost too keyed up within her skin. The shades of darkness within her were more than the mere tendrils her parents tried to tell the public that they were. It wasn't the ghost of her possession, but the same seeds of darkness her parents had. The Sorceress had found fertile soil within her when the possession had occurred, because she had known what her parents had known: sometimes you had to be cruel to run a country. Sometimes you had to be the very thing you despised in order to get things done. Sometimes the ends really did justify the means.

"You're thinking too hard," Zero chided gently. "I can almost hear it."

Azkadellia pressed dry lips to his forehead. "I'm going to do this thing. What we talked about." She straightened in her chair. "I'm done being afraid. I'm done apologizing for what I've done or what I've failed to do, especially if they're doing the same things I did."

Zero smiled at her approvingly. "There you are."

"I'll need you by my side," Azkadellia continued softly. "I can't do this alone."

"Forever, my princess. My Sorceress. I have always belonged to you."

Caressing his face gently, she smiled. "I know. I didn't appreciate it properly before."

"Don't mourn me, Azkadellia," Zero said softly as her hand slid down past where he couldn't feel anything anymore. "Don't think I'm weak."

"You're still a vile creature, Zero," Azkadellia replied just as softly. "I still love you for it."

He laughed. "I can't wait to see how you strengthen magic in the kingdom. I know you'll be the best thing that ever happened to it." His laughter was cold and cruel. "Your mother is weak. She doesn't know the potential in the Gale line. But you do. You know more of the old magic than they ever will."

Azkadellia kissed him softly. "Thank you, Zero."

"For what?"

"For not changing. For not feeling sorry for yourself."

"Why? Your mother's paying for someone to wipe my ass for me and give me a sponge bath while I ogle them." Zero laughed. "Too bad I can't show my appreciation properly."

Azkadellia caught his chin in her hand, squeezing tightly. She kept her hold on his face while she clambered up on top of him. "I'm the only one you show your appreciation to."

His gaze smoldered as he looked at her. "Forever, Azkadellia."

She smiled, eyes hooded and dangerous. "Good answer, Zero."

This was the start of something, not an ending. Of that she was sure now.

End.


End file.
